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US’ F-35s Jets Not Really Stealth As German, Russian Firms Expose Its Loopholes

Rostocker

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I guess its one of the reasons why Germany did not buy this trash. Its slow and depends on its stealth...its stealth was busted last year by a new german radar system and now it appears the russians busted it as well.

US’ F-35s Jets Not Really Stealth As German, Russian Firms Expose Its Loopholes

despite US President Donald Trump reiterating the same beliefs of the fighter jets being “truly invisible and simply impossible to be seen with the naked eye”, a German defense contractor, Hensoldt has debunked such myths by stating that its newly invented radar system, named TwInvis, which reportedly it tracked the jets for nearly 100 miles.



According to a press report, TwInvis was set up at the 2018 Berlin Air Show in Germany, which was participated by two US Air Force F-35s, which were tracked by the radar system for over 93 miles (150 kilometers).

The passive radar system, which operates by studying electromagnetic emissions in the atmosphere, thinks radio station signals, Television signals, cell phone tower signals, and commercial radars, can detect aircraft moving through this invisible sea of signals by “reading how the signals bounce off airborne objects”.

However, it can only be used as an early warning radar by detecting a stealth fighter’s approach and is still not sophisticated enough to guide radar-guided missiles. Although, according to press reports, TwInvis can still provide enough location data for an infrared-guided missile to search for a target’s hot engine exhaust.

Moreover, the radar system could be refined with complementary systems to make it more effective in stealth detection, forcing adversaries to purchase even expensive passive systems.

If there are any aircraft that are most sought-out for anywhere across the world, they are America’s elite set of F-35 fifth-generation stealth jets. Renowned for their stealth technology, the jets have enabled the US to stamp absolute air dominance as it provides the Air Force, Navy, and Marines a supreme jet that is simply unmatchable.



But what sets the F-35 a cut above the rest is its Electronic Warfare (EW) system, considered to be world’s most advanced system, coupled with its stealth technology, which makes use of its integrated stealth design, to make not only the most survivable combat aircraft ever built, but to make it invisible to detection or tracking by radar and other sensors.



However, despite US President Donald Trump reiterating the same beliefs of the fighter jets being “truly invisible and simply impossible to be seen with the naked eye”, a German defense contractor, Hensoldt has debunked such myths by stating that its newly invented radar system, named TwInvis, which reportedly it tracked the jets for nearly 100 miles.



According to a press report, TwInvis was set up at the 2018 Berlin Air Show in Germany, which was participated by two US Air Force F-35s, which were tracked by the radar system for over 93 miles (150 kilometers).

Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II - Wikipedia

The passive radar system, which operates by studying electromagnetic emissions in the atmosphere, thinks radio station signals, Television signals, cell phone tower signals, and commercial radars, can detect aircraft moving through this invisible sea of signals by “reading how the signals bounce off airborne objects”.

However, it can only be used as an early warning radar by detecting a stealth fighter’s approach and is still not sophisticated enough to guide radar-guided missiles. Although, according to press reports, TwInvis can still provide enough location data for an infrared-guided missile to search for a target’s hot engine exhaust.

Moreover, the radar system could be refined with complementary systems to make it more effective in stealth detection, forcing adversaries to purchase even expensive passive systems.



The second contender for pinning a hole in F-35s ‘invisibility’ myth are Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missiles, which are considered by far the world’s most advanced air defense systems, boasting the ability to successfully intercept any stealth technology currently available in the world.

As reported earlier by the Eurasian Times, Tod Wolters, the commander of U.S. European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander for Europe explained – “You cannot operate an F-35 in the vicinity of an S-400. They won’t talk to each other, and what the two military devices will aim to do, certainly the S-400s against the F-35s, is to exploit the F-35’s capabilities.”
 
At this point I am convinced the F-35s are a complete and monumental waste of money, an epic miss in achieving any of the design goals for a 5th generation stealth fighter aircraft.
 
A few points:

1) The F-35 was never intended to be a state of the art stealth aircraft. The F-35 was intended to be a lower cost, affordable aircraft that could replace about half a dozen different aircraft types with the USAF, USN, USMC, and U.S. allies..

2) No stealth aircraft is invisible to radar. That isn't possible nor is it the intent of making an aircraft stealthy in the first place.

3) You can't have stealth with high speed. Those two capabilities are at opposite ends of the spectrum. And the F-35 was never designed for multi mach high speeds anyway.
 
Depends on what you define as stealth. The germans designed a radar that detects distortions in air and radio frequencies rather than just bouncing back radio frequencies, it's effectiveness and range is not fully known. The russians have been able to track it with l band with the s-300 and s-400 systems which are much weaker than fixed position l band radar.

However things do become murky, after iran launched missiles at american bases in iraq, russia informed them of f-35 jets around their border, so russia could clearly see them quite a distance away, however such intel caused iran to fire missiles at a civilian jetliner, which meant irans ability to see such was extremely limited, otherwise they would have tracked them at the border and known if they moved past that, rather than being irrational and shooting down a civilian jet because they did not know.

Also when it comes to stealth every radar can detect stealth, stealth is not universal, some setups protect against certain bands better than others, and all radars can detect them, the question is not can they detect them it is how far away can they detect them. If you are flying a f-35 within 20 miles of an x band radar it is likely that radar sees you, if you are 50 miles away odds are extremely low it sees you. L band can track stealth 4-600 miles away but is not accurate enough to target it, meaning s band or thermal would need to be used to target unless it got close, and the only current answer would be using l band to guide them in the general direction and let the missile switch to thermal or other internal guidance, which would be a nightmare as even though l band can see stealth, differentiating things on l band is a nightmare, and could lead to many civilian aircraft being destroyed due to simple errors.
 
A few points:

1) The F-35 was never intended to be a state of the art stealth aircraft. The F-35 was intended to be a lower cost, affordable aircraft that could replace about half a dozen different aircraft types with the USAF, USN, USMC, and U.S. allies..

2) No stealth aircraft is invisible to radar. That isn't possible nor is it the intent of making an aircraft stealthy in the first place.

3) You can't have stealth with high speed. Those two capabilities are at opposite ends of the spectrum. And the F-35 was never designed for multi mach high speeds anyway.

The sr-71 proved you can not have stealth and high speed, the soviets learned fairly fast something traveling at such high speed even if not directly visible due to low rcs like the sr-71 still leaves a distortion on the radar, the soviets further developed such tech and learned anything supersonic no matter how stealthy shows up on radar to anyone who knows what they are looking at.

The only way to avoid such distortion would be subsonic.
 
Yep, all stealth does is get you close enough to fire a missile before the bad guy can see you.
 
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